


A Sunny Morning in New Orleans

by bynightafangirl



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post 3x21
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:43:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8246096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bynightafangirl/pseuds/bynightafangirl
Summary: Post 3x21. Elijah muses on what has brought them to this point.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by an anon @haylijahshippersclub.tumblr.com

Sunlight streamed into the window of the old French Quarter house, saturating everything it touched in burnished gold, including her skin.  

Elijah couldn’t help but feel a stillness in his spirit at the pleasure of being able to witness this. A calm he had not earned. A peace he had forsaken with an act of brutality that was as necessary as it was excruciating.

**_“And loving any of us is a death sentence.”_ **

A sharp pain splintered the peace he had found upon waking, images of Marcel’s heart pulsing in his hand flowing steadily within his mind’s eye. The look of betrayal on Niklaus’ face...the tears in Hayley’s eyes as he beseeched her to forgive him…

And yet he was here. With her.

Warmer memories overcame him now. The feel of her hair wrapped around his fingers. The soft, giving flesh of her lips against his own. The rush of blood pulsing in her veins.

She was so full of life. Even now in slumber.

He recalled that first moment after their lips parted, the desire tensing his muscles as he waited...waited to see that same desire reflected within her eyes. If you looked close enough you could see Hayley’s soul within her eyes. She held nothing back. Her lack of conceit and deception compelled him, called to him in an elemental way. He found himself lost within her. Driven to protect her and encourage her and lust after her and...love her.

He loved her.

**_“I always have loved you.”_ **

Hayley’s voice, full of anguish and sadness came to him then. It was fitting that the first true words of love spoken between them would be filled with pain. Elijah had lived a thousand lifetimes, but the years since she had come into his life seemed endless...overwrought with longing and loneliness; a constant stream of intense emotion neither one of them could ever truly own. Until they were pushed too far...

His hand reached out to touch her. To feel her once again as he had last night. After finding what he sought within her gaze, he had spoken a hushed question against her lips.

_ “Are you certain?” _

Hayley slipped a soft sigh into his mouth and with no hesitation, she offered him a fervent, “Yes.”

* * *

Elijah had taken his time removing each barrier between them, reverent, leaving room for the emotion surrounding them to interlock and encase them in a cocoon of desire and passion.

Hayley’s hands traveled over his torso, pausing above his heart. She looked up into his eyes as she registered that there was no heartbeat, the universal symbol of life. She was no longer with Jackson. Their life was surrounded by death from all sides.

A thousand moments passed between them, before lips crashed against one another and his arms banded around her waist to bring her flush against his bared skin. Hayley’s hand gripped the back of his head, nails sliding across his skin, making his body shudder. He led them to the edge of the bed and brought her down, without ever breaking the connection between their lips.

Emotion pumped into him, driving his need higher and higher and he transferred each feeling, each thought, each want into her. She was his anchor. She was everything. He would raze the world for her.

“Elijah…” That voice echoed in his mind. Soft, breathless, filled with lust. He felt himself stir beneath the sheets, but quelled his body to behave. Not just yet. He wanted to enjoy her like this for just a bit more.

Hayley laid next to him naked, stripped of everything that had haunted her during this past year. She seemed happy. And as he thought of the confessions of love they whispered to one another during the last moments of darkness, joined mind, body, and soul, he realized, so was he.


End file.
